RunningS☼nday: Natural theology and Blatty’s, The 9th Configuration: Show me God exists!
3May 19 by The Running Son
So, what are your thoughts?
William Peter Blatty‘s 1980 movie adaptation of his own Korean War era book “Twinkle Twinkle Killer Cane”. Stacey Keach plays decorated combat veteran and psychiatrist Col. Vincent Kane, and inmate and Astronaut Billy Cutshaw is played by the equally talented Scott Wilson.
The The 9th Configuration, can be seen in full HERE. In this clip, Col. Kane and Cpt. Cutshaw have been debating several topics already, but this one has risen central: I see evil in the world, but how can I know God exists?
What do you think about “knowing” that God, or divinity, truly and really exists?
jim
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This is an interesting question! It reminds me of why I can’t make friends at cocktail parties — this is the kind of stuff I like to talk about!
I think I know God exists, because of physical and intuitive experiences I have had. And the God I am aware of has lots of layers — the ones more immediate to me have a personality, like a grandmother, and like a grandmother give great “advice,” or messages. But further out no personality, no morality, consciousness and the operation of laws and impulses. I am a part of it, like the billions of bacteria in my body are part of me, and it is a mysterious kind of humming. And regarding evil, antibiotics probably seem very evil to the billions of bacteria inside me, to whom I am a kind of universe, but sometimes I need bacteria to be healthy, so…I guess the further out you go the less personal things seem.
I confess I just revisited your blog. Then went back and liked the post on Mike Daisey’s monologue. To be fair. I noticed again I am following. Good. W have similar interests it looks like, including interest in the baddest broad that ever graced (with edges) the post-war intellectual scene.
I am in great conflict over her ideas. I wanted to form them like hers. At first, it was a vision of man, the Atlas, an idea. The greatness in man unlocked through will. Great. Work on that will and I’ll be Arnold Schartsne-whatever. Atlas. Elite. Damn 30 foot boardroom tables and metal in my veins. But it was a construct with no emotional grounding, or direction to go excep the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine. (yeah)
I saw her logic behind making a virtue of the self. Then those who demand respect, which was clearly a virtue for her. She began at the I and worked in layers outward. Which is why your description caught me off guard. Where is is explained that way?
I am intrigued. It rings of being true. From the beginning, when you know waaaay down in your knower…there is no polemic, no debate. Because the experience changes you, me, outward in levels, expanding and taking in more, able to love or be more open.
Mrs Rand didn’t get in to that much. that’s ok. 😉 You did. And I think the3 Fountainhead is a great book. And Atlas Shrugged. But she seems to have been a little disconnected from caring and vulnerability. Reminds me of friends, and others. Her husband, from accounts, seems like a chill guy.
Wonder what he thought about it all. hehe
♫
4and20? Angels? 4:20? 4score and 20 years since you last thought about it? 😉